Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Where The Wild Things Are Harmed

Remind me never to go on any kind of wilderness expedition with Jonah
Goldberg. OK, that’s not the kind of thing I actually need to be
reminded about, but still.

After reading his latest columnar epic on the non-virtues of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge,
I know exactly what kind of campmate he’d be: the one who spills the
washwater into everyone’s sleeping bags and burns a big hole in the tent
while he’s at it. And then fires off a gun just for fun in bear country
(note: gunfire attracts grizzlies, who assume a carcass or guts may be
found in the vicinity thereof).

There is an illustrative example of this closer to home here in
Seattle that involves our resident population of killer whales in the
Puget Sound region. An article I wrote last year
for Seattle Magazine explored to what extent they’re being harmed,
somewhat unthinkingly, by the thousands of people who come out annually
to see them in whale-watching boats — tours that, for the most part,
tend to be about enhancing the habitat of the Sound’s wildlife:

The problem is self-evident on a typical
summer day off the western coast of San Juan Island. When orcas arrive
on the scene, they are accompanied by a massive flotilla of boats:
whale-watching tour craft intermingled with private recreational
boaters, kayakers and regular users of these waters. The boats zoom in
and out and around, creating a frenetic scene. At times during the
summer, whale observers say the orcas are accompanied by boats from
nearly sunup to sundown.

It’s even more apparent to anyone who drops a hydrophone beneath the
surface of Haro Strait and listens to the whales’ conversations, which
come in the form of whistles, chirps, calls and clicks. Along with those
sounds is the cacophony of engine noise, ranging from the high squeals
of small outboards to the overpowering thrum created by large vessels en
route to Vancouver and points north through the strait. In recent
years, scientists have been studying the effects of these boats and the
noise they create on the whales; the data they’ve collected indicates
that, at least in years when the supply of chinook salmon that comprise
the bulk of their diet is low, the boats are amplifying the harm to the
whales.

David Bain, a marine biologist who specializes in killer whales (who
was with the University of Washington until recently), has been
painstakingly collecting acoustic and behavioral data on the southern
residents for over 15 years now. Tall, balding and bearded, he’s the
epitome of the careful scientist as he explains in a quiet voice that
he’s found two things of concern.

Whales do less foraging when the boats are around, he says. “That
probably means that they’re eating less, and acquiring less energy.
There is an energy balance in whales, and whale watching has an effect
on that.” And the sheer number of vessels creates a critical mass of
obstacles that whales then have to maneuver around, causing them to
expend more energy than they would otherwise, he says.

He notes that even kayaks can be a problem, especially if they dart
into the whales’ path or invade their space, and fail to warn the whales
of their presence. Still, a kayak that observes the preferred
whale-watching guideline of 100 yards’ distance will have almost no
effect on the whales because of its silence, while any power boat within
audible range is creating at least some level of disturbance.

You get a little sense of this in the video I made that is atop this
post, comprised of photos I mostly took from my kayak of San Juan killer
whales, and the recordings I made of them with my hydrophone. At one
point, you can hear the whales peacefully communicating — and then a
boat engine from a private boat that had been watching the whales kicked
on and sped off, but the noise they created lingers on (I actually
edited down the noise by several minutes, but you get the idea).

In any event, it all stands as a reminder of how easy it is for
humans to harm entire ecosystems, and all the creatures within it,
unthinkingly — even when we think that we’re appreciating them, let
alone when we’re "harmlessly" building roads and pipelines and drilling
operations in the midst of a wilderness.

Would that buffoons like Jonah Goldberg could figure that out. In the meantime, could someone keep him away from my tent?

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.